Expedia Group has launched two new features on its partner-facing portal to ease the digital transition for new hotel partners in Thailand who may be unfamiliar with online distribution.

As part of Expedia Group’s commitment following the recent signing of an MoU with Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) and the Thai government’s push for the country’s digital transformation through its “Thailand 4.0” initiative, the company will also be conducting a series of educational workshops to accelerate digital skills transfer to the hospitality industry in secondary cities.

According to a recent study, more than half of travellers use OTAs in their trip planning and OTAs convert the most travellers when compared with other booking sources.

Pimpawee Nopakitgumjorn, director of market management at Expedia Group, added that business opportunities are missed because the majority of accommodation in Thailand’s secondary cities are still offline.

“Hoteliers who are still operating offline will ultimately lose the opportunity to capitalise on Thailand’s growing inbound tourism”, said Pim.

To bridge the digital skill set gap and ease hotel owners’ concerns over the complexity of using digital tools, Expedia Group is introducing two new features on Partner Central, the company’s partner-facing portal.

Co-Browse is a trouble-shooting tool designed to solve hotel partners’ pain points when they have navigation problems on Expedia Group’s Partner Central platform. It provides hotel partner the capability to share their Partner Central webpage via a connection with Expedia Group consultant in real-time. Once a connection is established, the consultant can view, point to, and highlight areas of the screen to better assist hotel partners in navigating and performing operational tasks on Partner Central.

The other feature is the Adaptive Landing Page, designed to provide customised content and recommendations on the Partner Central homepage based on hotels’ current needs and familiarity with the different tools within Partner Central.

Expedia says the Adaptive Landing Page provides a simplified and more personalised experience for newly onboarded hotel partners to help them understand “the most essential tools and time-sensitive tasks” on Partner Central quickly, enabling them to optimise content, maximise visibility and accelerate booking potential on Expedia Group’s marketplace.

In addition to these online enhancements, Expedia Group will also be collaborating with TAT to organise a series of educational workshops to provide consultancy and digital expertise to hoteliers in secondary cities. These workshops will be conducted by experts from Expedia Group Lodging Partner Services.